Papers Verney Lovett Cameron, 1872-1886, relate to the Livingstone Relief Expedition of 1873 and notably include: account books from 1872; correspondence about the preparation and progress of the Expedition, 1873-1875; a diary for October - December 1874; correspondence on funding the exhibition 1873-1881.

Papers of Vilhjamur Stefansson including photostats of records from the Arctic, 1851-1909, found by the Canadian Arctic expedition in 1917 on Banks and Dealy Islands and letters, chiefly on Stefansson's interest on Ogden's system of Basic English, 1926-1954.

William Harvey Hooper's journals as purser on HMS ALEXANDER, HMS HECLA, and HMS FURY, 1818-1825, and extracts from meteorological observations, on the John Ross and W E Parry expeditions in search of the Northwest Passage.

Papers of Capt William Shakespear, 1908-1915, including field notebooks on 'Kuwait tours' giving route and bearings, 1909-1913; observations in Kuwait, 1911; tour to Nejd and a single page with depths of desert wells, Kuwait hinterland, Mar-Apr, 1913; notes on route and bearings, Feb-May 1914; computations of aneroid observations, 1914; observations of the sun's meridian, 1911, 1913 and 1914; copies of letters and papers including the last letter from Shakespear to his brother, 14 Jan 1915.

Notebooks of Col Walter Hugh Jerrery containing rough notes, routes and daily entries on the journeys: Hong Kong to Miao Feng, 1902-1903; Bhamo (upper Burma) to Shanghai, 1905-1906 and various short expeditions from Sadiya in Assam, 1911-1912. Also passport in Chinese.

Papers of Capt William John Gill, 1874-1884, including travel diary in Constantinople, 1879; travel diary in India (the Marri expedition at the close of the second Afghan War), Persia and Russia, 1880-1881; press cuttings chiefly relating to Indian affairs, 1874-1884; travel diary in Tripoli, Oct 1881-Jun 1882; travel diaries in China, 1876-1877 and 1877-1878, and notes on Chinese characters and place names, 1877.

Notes by William Lockhart and locally printed material concerning Peking and the surrounding region, 1844-1877.

Geological and route notebooks of William Archibald MacFadyen, 1920-1948, including pre war notebooks in Egypt, Farsan Island, Romania, British Somaliland; Iraq and Syria, notebooks made during World War Two in North Africa, Sicily, Corsica and Italy and notebooks made in post war British Somaliland for the General Survey.

Papers of W O McEwan, 1884-1885, including four field notebooks, Apr 1884 - May 1885, of a journy from Durban to Mozambique via the Zambezi river, Livingstonia and Karonga on Lake Nyasa and of a journey from Lake Nyasa to Lake Tanganyika; astronomical observations, on river Kwaka and at the African Lakes Corporation station at Maruru, British East Africa, May 1884; notes taken on route from Lake Nyasa to Lake Tanganyika, including particulars of the countries passed through, notes on an alternative route from Chirimadamusi to [Diumkorolo]; three sketch maps of British East Africa and aprinted map of 'Route survey Nyassa to Tanganyika by James Stewart, 1879' with red ink line of 'proposed variation' added.

Papers of Walter Mersh Strong, 1905-1906, comprising notes on secondary positions, notebook containing maps, language notes, bearings and positions, Mafulu to Kambodi, New Guinea, 1905 and two mapping books, New Guinea, 1905-1906.

Papers of William Parker Snow, including four volumes of press cuttings and notes on North and South America, 1849-1850 and 1861-1867; notebooks containing material on Arctic matters including one volume of Arctic letters and maps; two volumes of press cuttings; one volume of extracts from correspondence with Lady Franklin and Sophia Cracroft about the PRINCE ALBERT and a proposed voyage in search of Sir John Franklin; journal, 4-15 Jul 1850 on board PRINCE ALBERT and journal of a voyage to Australia and residence in Melbourne, 1853.

Papers of William Singer Barclay, 1901-1918, comprise diaries, 1901-1918, of residence and travel in Uruguay, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina Ecuador and Colombia; reports on the Misiones region, 1904-1907 and miscellaneous notes and news cuttings from a variety of sources concerning South America.

Papers of William and Katherine Routledge from their expedition to Easter Island, 1913-1916 together with some papers concerning Jamaica, including notebooks, papers, sketches, maps, photographs, slides and correspondence; extensive notes of writings of earlier visitors to the island; log books of the expedition yacht MANA, 20 Feb 1913-31 Jul 1916; burgee of the MANA; lists of yacht's stores, expenses etc.; draft of Katherine Routledge's book, The Mystery of Easter Island; tracings of rock carvings, sketch plans, lantern slides, photographs, correspondence and notes from Easter Island; albums of press cuttings, chiefly reviews of The Mystery of Easter Island and With a Prehistoric People; index cards with a vocabulary of Mangarevanotes and correspondence concerning Jamaica and the expedition to cross the John Crow Mountains, 1920-1933.

Papers of Whitney Willard Straight, 1962-1968, comprising correspondence, press cuttings and papers concerning his visits to the Sahara and to Socotra.

Papers of Sir Wilfred Patrick Thesiger, 1946-1994, including lists of fossils, rocks and minerals collected in Arabia, 1947; copies of letters from Thesiger to various correspondents; route notebook from Kachu to Jalalabad, Nuristan, 28 Jul-4 Sep 1956; meteorological observations Rub al Khali, Arabia, 1947; tabulated traverse by draftsman for the 1949 expedition from Muwaiqih; loose notes and notebooks, 1947-1948; seating plan for Thesiger's 80th birthday dinner at the Royal Geographical Society, 6 Jun 1990; transcript of an interview with Thesiger for a Channel 4 television documentary, Heart of a Nomad, Aug 1994; appendices to an article by Thesiger, 'A New Journey in Southern Arabia' published in The Geographical Journal, Vol. 108, No. 4/6 (Oct-Dec, 1946), pp 129-145 and envelope containing notes of payments for camels and servants, South Arabia.

Images by Walter Waller May including twelve lithographs from drawings made by May on board HMS ASSISTANCE on a Franklin Search Expedition, 1852 and a watercolour, 'Beechey Island' 1852.

Correspondence and papers, 1834-1950s, of and relating to David Livingstone, composed of three sub-collections.

Official London Missionary Society (LMS) papers of and relating to Livingstone, 1834-1872, largely comprise a series of over 100 original letters from Livingstone to his friends and to the LMS in connection with his work as an LMS missionary, mostly from southern Africa, the bulk dating from the 1840s and 1850s, and also include letters between other correspondents and miscellaneous other documents relating to Livingstone; 15 letters, 1852-1855, of Mary Livingstone (née Moffat), probably mostly directed to LMS officials, with typescript copies.

The LMS reference collection on Livingstone comprises typescript and manuscript copies of the LMS Livingstone letters; original letters relating to Livingstone, 1845, 1850; copies of other letters and documents by or relating to Livingstone, 1841-1881, held elsewhere, including a later copy of Livingstone's answers to LMS questions on becoming a missionary (1838); photocopy of Livingstone's Bechuana journal, 1853; two microfilms of materials on Robert and Mary Moffat and Livingstone; papers relating to Livingstone, 1850s-1950s, collected by the LMS, including copies of further LMS documents relating to him, typescripts, press cuttings and printed material on his life and fame and places associated with him.

The Bruce Livingstone collection comprises original letters, largely from Livingstone to Robert Moffat, 1844-1857, and photocopies of four letters, 1847-1853, from David Livingstone to Charles Livingstone.

Photocopies of journals, 1887-1889, of A J Mounteney Jephson, comprising Books One to Four, giving a detailed description of activities of H M Stanley's expedition to relieve Emin Pasha, including the journey via Zanzibar, and the hardships faced. Book Three includes copies of some of Stanley's correspondence. Book Four, covering April to [October] 1889, is less detailed than Books One to Three, and less accurately dated. With typescript transcriptions of the journals [1960s] for Dorothy Middleton's published edition.

Papers, 1963-1971 and undated, of and relating to Edward William Bovill, comprising notebooks and files and research material for the book Missions to the Niger, Vols I-IV (Hakluyt Society, 1962-1966). The papers are mainly xerox copies of correspondence in the Public Record Office relating to the explorations of Friedrich Hornemann, Mungo Park, Dixon Denham, Hugh Clapperton, Alexander Gordon Laing and Walter Oudney in Africa during the period c1800-1829. There are also several notebooks, which contain notes of the progress of Bovill's work.

Notebooks of William Dawes, one dated 1790, comprising grammatical forms and vocabularies of the language spoken in the neighbourhood of Sydney, New South Wales; short vocabularies of the language of natives of Van Diemen's Land, collected by the officers of the French frigates La Recherche and L'Espérance in 1793.

Papers, 1898-1948, of Frederick Migeod, comprising notebooks and other manuscript material relating to West Africa. Topics covered include natural history and botany in addition to language materials.